The China Syndrome

More about the book

THE CHINA SYNDROME - a tragedy that many consider to be only slightly less dangerous than an atomic bomb explosion. THE CHINA SYNDROME - a remarkable thriller that reveals some early American societal issues, the superficiality of entertainment media, and the greed of the wealthiest corporations, proved prophetic in a very unsettling and rapid way. Just a week after the American premiere of the film, starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas, an incident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg in March 1979, exactly as the film's authors had predicted. An accident that nearly led to catastrophe. THE CHINA SYNDROME - "When the water level in the reactor vessel drops due to a failure in the reactor cooling system," explains Professor Lowell to reporters in the film and book, "the nuclear fuel can begin to heat uncontrollably, eventually turning into a molten, unstoppable mass that penetrates through the concrete floor of the plant straight into the ground, theoretically, through the center of the earth - all the way to China." THE CHINA SYNDROME - an exciting story about a television reporting team racing against time and corporations that, for profit, try to downplay the significance of an accident, an accident that almost became THE CHINA SYNDROME.